Search for sisters expands

Girls missing in Muskegon River after trying to rescue friend

Girls missing in Muskegon River after trying to rescue friend

BIG RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) Â? Authorities have widened their search for two young sisters who disappeared while trying to rescue a friend from a treacherous section of the Muskegon River.

"I don't even know how to live without them. They are my everything," the girls' mother, Doris Windburn, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Tuesday.

Rescue divers searched more than a half-mile stretch of the swift-moving river after the sisters, Shelila and Areilla Simmons, went into the water around 7:20 p.m. on Friday.

The search continued Saturday and Sunday. By Monday afternoon, divers decided to expand the search area by targeting specific locations farther downstream, said Frank West, deputy director of the Big Rapids department of public safety.

Authorities said Shelila, 14, and Areilla, 11, of Big Rapids, were walking along the riverbank in Hemlock Park when they saw their friend in trouble.

Neither of the sisters can swim, but Shelila braved the current to offer help. When she began struggling, her younger sister went in after her.

The girls' older sister saw them enter the water and slip below the surface as the friend they were trying to save swam safely to shore, said Lashanda Brown, a 27-year-old family friend from Big Rapids.

Shelila is in the eighth grade at Big Rapids Middle School. Areilla is a sixth-grader at the school.

Windburn, 38, the mother of six children, said she took comfort from the courage that her two missing girls showed in coming to the aid of the swimmer in trouble.

"They laid down their life for somebody else," she said. "I'm proud of them."